Working As Part Of A Team

Being a teacher and working as part of a team can be one of the most rewarding and challenging aspects to your career. Many questions arise such as ‘when do you find time to share planning?’ ‘How do you play to everyone's strengths?’ ‘What do you do when someone doesn’t do their fair share?’.

Having worked both in mainstream and SEN schools, building good working relations has been a vital part to the success of the teaching and learning. I don’t think I ever got taught how to do this on my PGCE, so was very much learn on the job. So, for all you teachers out there, here are my top 5 tips.

1. Listen. Quite often your TA’s are experienced members of the school team, and often have valuable knowledge that they can share with you about the children and the way the school works. Take on board what they say, and combine this with your ethos and vision for the children. However, be wary of ‘we have already tried that and it didn’t work’. Acknowledge this, and ask for support so that you can try.
2. Use rotas, and ensure that you put yourself on these. This is important in any setting, but if personal care or playground duties are part of the team's role, remember you are part of that team, and should do a share.
3. Timekeeping. Set expectations from the start, using the rotas can be a really good way to ensure everyone starts and finishes as the school expects as there will be jobs and tasks to carry out. If someone’s timekeeping isn’t great, be brave and speak about this. Ask if there is a reason why this is hard for them and suggest coming up with solutions together. If it persists, report this to your line manager.
4. Share. Find time in the week to share planning, this could be the morning after PPA, print this out and leave this as an important task for the following morning. Highlight what you would like your TA to do, and offer them time to ask questions. If you are wanting them to assess or complete profile books, then ensure they understand what you are looking for and how you are requiring this to be completed. Time invested at the start can be incredibly worthwhile.
5. Support. If your school expects you to set intervention groups that your TA’s run, remember that the planning and target setting for these sessions is still your responsibility. Ensure that the staff are confident in what they are delivering, and why. For example, they may be asked to run a fine motor skills group with a small group who all receive OT. Ensure that the staff member has seen the goals, has access to the resources that they need, and that you provide time for them to feedback the outcomes. If yourself, and your team are not confident in delivering certain interventions, speak with your SENDco or subject leaders who may be able to support you in setting this up so that they are supporting the students learning.

Are any of you a secondary teacher? We would love to gather some top tips for working as part of a team at secondary or higher education level, send them through to wearethesenco@hotmail.com